Chapter Text
POV DUSTIN
The air in the small Purdue apartment felt unusually heavy that summer night in 1993. The cardboard boxes, half-assembled and scattered around the living room, were the silent testimony of a future that, until a few minutes ago, belonged to both of us. The Caltech letterhead gleamed on the kitchen table under the flickering ceiling light, confirming my acceptance to graduate school in theoretical physics. That piece of paper was supposed to be our ticket out, the chance to start over in Pasadena, away from the side glances, the prejudices of the time, and the awkward silences that always accompanied two men in love in a hostile world.
Steve was standing by the window, with his back to me. His shoulders, usually upright and confident, looked slumped, weighed down by an invisible burden. We had been together for five years. Five years of building a secret refuge since we went from being best friends to something so deep it sometimes scared me. I loved him with a mathematical, absolute intensity; and I knew, without the slightest trace of doubt, that he loved me the same way. Love had never been our problem.
"I think we should break up, Dustin,"- he said suddenly. His voice sounded strangely calm, but fragile.
I stood frozen in the middle of the room, a partially cut packing tape in my hands. My knowledge of physics told me that time always moves forward, but at that exact moment, I felt the entire universe stop.- "What are you talking about, Steve?"- I asked. My own voice sounded strange, distant—"The truck comes next week. Pasadena is waiting for us.
Steve turned around slowly. His eyes were foggy and he had a grimace of pain that he tried to hide with a severity that just didn’t come naturally. He avoided looking at the moving boxes, fixing his eyes directly on mine. -I can’t go with you -he admitted, taking a step back-.I’m not ready for something more serious. Caltech, a new city, an apartment in both our names… it overwhelms me. I love you, Dustin, but I can’t do it.
The word commitment hung between us like a concrete wall. But I saw in his eyes that there was something more, a deeper and more painful truth he had been hiding. His jaw trembled before he continued. —And it’s not just California, Dustin —he added, his voice breaking, letting his arms fall to his sides—. I’ve been thinking a lot. About the future. About what I really want for my life. I... I've always wanted to be a dad. I've dreamed about it for as long as I can remember. And I know that if I get on that plane with you, if we move in together and seal this forever, it’s a door I’ll have to close. I could never do it with you. In this world, being who we are... they would never let us have a family.
His words fell with the weight of an inevitable sentence. I listened in absolute silence, feeling how each phrase dismantled the ground beneath my feet. I wanted to speak, I wanted to find a solution, but I couldn’t find a single argument in my mind. In the summer of 1993, the laws, society, and reality itself were on his side; there was no legal or safe future for two men who wanted to raise a child together. It was an insurmountable wall. As I looked at him, my mind traveled through the years. I remembered entire nights spent on the floor of his old room, road trips with the music blasting, secrets that no one else knew, and the way we had become a single being. We were Dustin and Steve, an unchanging constant in the chaos of our lives. Thinking about everything we had built and how it was vanishing in that moment caused me immense physical pain, as if my heart were breaking into a thousand pieces inside my chest.
However, I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept my gaze fixed, forcing myself not to show the disaster that was happening inside me. I didn’t shed a single tear, nor did I let my hands tremble. I could see the suffering in Steve’s eyes; I knew perfectly well how much it was hurting him to take that step and how hard it was for him to break the bond that tied us together. Showing my devastation would have only made the moment more unbearable and destructive for him. He was already dealing with his own demons; I wasn’t going to be another burden. -“It’s okay,”- I whispered, dropping the packing tape onto the wooden floor. -“I understand.”-
Steve blinked, surprised by my calmness, perhaps expecting a complaint or a plea that would ease his guilt. There was an unbearable electric tension in the silence that followed, one last look loaded with five years of memories, secret caresses, and silent promises that were now fading. Without another word, Steve grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and walked toward the exit. The sound of the door closing behind him hit my chest like a gunshot. I was left alone in the dim apartment, surrounded by empty boxes, my soul shattered by what had been my best friend, as the warmth of that summer turned into the coldest winter of my life.
When I heard the final click of the door, the invisible armor I had been holding up all night completely crumbled. I slid down against the entry wall until my knees hit the floor, unable to stand any longer. I looked around; the apartment was exactly the same, surrounded by cardboard boxes and with the Caltech letter on the table, but in a matter of minutes, my whole world had become unrecognizable. It was terrifying how fast things could change. You spend years calculating every variable, planning a perfect future with the person you love, building an unchangeable equation of life, and suddenly, someone comes along and takes it all away with a handful of honest words.
There, in the absolute solitude of that night, I decided not to hold back anymore. I gave myself permission to break down. I allowed myself that whole night to feel bad, to embrace the devastation without the restraint of maturity or sanity. The tears, which had previously stayed stuck at the edge of my eyelids, burst out with violent force, burning my cheeks. My blue eyes turned red, bloodshot and heavy from emotional fatigue. I began to sob so deeply that my chest ached physically, a torrential cry that came from the very core of my stomach. The lack of air gave me a hiccup that interrupted my breaths and made my moans even more pathetic in the silence of the empty apartment. I hugged my own legs, hiding my face between my knees as my whole body shook. I couldn’t believe Steve was gone. I couldn’t process that next week’s truck would leave for Pasadena with just me.
In the midst of the pain, a part of me felt the need to cling to anger. I wanted to hate Steve. I desperately searched my mind for a reason to hold a grudge, because hatred would have been a much easier and numbing refuge than this absolute sadness. I wanted to blame him for being cowardly, for being scared of commitment, for leaving me alone at the brink of the future. But I couldn’t. I knew I could never hate him. It was Steve, after all. The guy who had become my home, the one who had loved me with the same intensity with which I now suffered from letting me go.
He wasn’t acting out of malice; it was just as hard for him as it was for me, and his pain when confessing to me his desire to be a father was as real as mine. I realized, with a bitterness that went straight to my bones, that loving someone as strongly as I loved him also meant this: accepting that their needs and fears were valid, even if they crushed my own dreams in the process. Loving Steve meant learning to let him go. And that night, under the dim light of Purdue, I understood that this would be the hardest lesson of my entire life.
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POV STEVE
The road back to Hawkins was a blur of taillights and pent-up tears that barely let me see the road. As I turned off the engine of my car in front of my house, the silence of the summer night fell on me like a slab of concrete. I stood still in the driver's seat, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles were white. I was utterly devastated by what I had just done. Regret had hit me in the gut from the exact moment I turned around and Dustin closed the door to his apartment at Purdue. Every mile away from Dustin felt like a physical tear in my chest. It hurt so much I could barely breathe. God, I loved him. I loved him like I had never loved anyone else in my entire life, with a feeling so immense that it terrified me completely.
He was my home, my anchor, the guy who knew every one of my secrets. But I had to be honest with myself. At first, when he got the Caltech offer, all this moving stuff seemed like a good idea. I got carried away by the fantasy of escaping, by the illusion of leaving behind the contemptuous looks of this town and the whispers behind our backs; I wanted to be free to live our love without having to hide.
However, as the days passed and the moving truck became a reality, the truth hit me square in the face: I wasn't ready for this step. I wasn't ready to leave my comfort zone, pack up my whole life, and go explore the world hand in hand with my best friend in a country that would hate us just for walking together. I was scared. Really scared. A deep terror of uncertainty, failure, and the definitiveness of a commitment in an unknown city where we'd only have each other.
While I was driving, I wished with all my might to be brave like Dustin. He never doubted; he looked to the future with the certainty of someone who understands the laws of the universe. Dustin was willing to risk everything for us, but I couldn’t. Not right now. My cowardice was winning the battle. I entered my dimly lit house and locked the door, knowing I had just sealed my own fate. I would stay here, trapped in the suffocating comfort of this town. I would try to build a routine, to work and live an ordinary life; a life in which Dustin was no longer there.
Crossing the living room, the very thought of imagining my day-to-day life without his explanations about physics, without our shared laughter, and without the warmth of his presence completely devastated me. I sat on the floor, resting my head on my knees in the dark, knowing I had stayed in the right place, but with my heart forever broken.